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“ISIS is the face of evil,” Obama said at the conclusion of the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey. “Our goal is to … destroy this barbaric organization.”

“Paris is not alone,” Obama said, highlighting attacks in Beirut, Turkey and Iraq.

“That’s not what is going on here. These are killers with fantasies of glory.”

Over the course of just a few days Donald Trump has gone from saying that we might have to close down mosques and create a Muslim registry to saying that not only will we do this but we have to do it and anything less is an utter capitulation.

In other words, rapidly evolving from refusing to rule out a draconian policy to affirmatively endorsing it to being its leading advocate.

With his Muslim ID card and database, Wednesday he said he wouldn't rule out creating such a system. By the end of the day he was telling NBC News he would "absolutely" create such a system.

British lawmakers on Monday engaged in a spirited debate about whether to ban Donald Trump from the U.K. over his remarks about Muslims

"His words are not comical, his words are not funny. His words are poisonous," said the Labour Party's Tulip Siddiq, who argued in support of a ban.

More than 500,000 people signed an online petition calling for Trump to be blocked for "hate speech" after he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States in the wake of attacks by extremists.

President Trump has announced that transgender Americans will not be allowed to serve “in any capacity” in the U.S. military, a move that could affect thousands of people serving in the armed forces and which resulted in almost immediate pushback from influential Republicans.

Trump’s announcement is the latest in a set of steps his administration has taken to walk back Obama-era policies on transgender Americans. The biggest shift is the reasoning: Rather than framing his decision in the language of rights or morality, as Obama-era officials did, Trump spoke about the new transgender policy in terms of military efficiency. The decision is likely to trigger major blowback from Democratic legislators and LGBT activists who long pushed for full acceptance of transgender service members. It will also bring gender identity back into the spotlight, reigniting a culture-war debate surrounding a president who has tried to sell himself as a friend of LGBT rights.  

While there has not been much research done on this question, according to Rand, policies welcoming lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans to serve openly in the military did not diminish units’ effectiveness. The Rand researchers expected “little or no impact on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness, or readiness” resulting from Obama’s policy.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that it is "unfair" to call President Donald Trump a racist but said his recently reported controversial comments about immigrants from Haiti and African countries are unhelpful

I think it’s unfair to sort of paint him, ‘oh well, he’s a racist,’ when I know for a fact that he cares very deeply about the people of Haiti because he helped finance a trip where they would get vision back for 200 people in Haiti,” Paul said.

rump's reported comments this week came just as members of Congress have been feverishly working toward getting a compromise on immigration that would reconcile increased funding for border security with safety for recipients of DACA — the Obama-era program that allowed the children of undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” a way to stay in the country without fear of deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Saturday it would resume processing renewal applications for young undocumented immigrants seeking protection from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.

The White House and President Donald Trump initially blasted the decision. But in a statement Saturday, DHS said: "Until further notice, and unless otherwise provided in this guidance, the DACA policy will be operated on the terms in place before it was rescinded on Sept. 5, 2017."

He then tweeted again on Sunday morning, claiming DACA is "probably dead" despite the judge's ruling prompting the U.S. to resume accepting renewal applications, and claiming he wants an immigration system based on merit. During the now-infamous bipartisan meeting on the subject, Trump reportedly called for the U.S. to accept more immigrants from Norway, rather than Haiti and African countries.

A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump 52% to 43% in a general election matchup.

For all intents and purposes, the general election campaign is underway. Yes, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is still running, but he has no realistic path to winning the Democratic nomination. That means that it's Biden vs. Trump.

And the President starts out in a very unusual place for an incumbent: behind. Trump is the first incumbent president to be trailing at this point in the general election cycle (i.e. late March in the election year) since Harry Truman in 1948.

President Donald Trump launched a Twitter attack Saturday morning on San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for "poor leadership ability," saying she and others in Puerto Rico "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort."

The President again praised the federal government's response on the island, which is grappling with the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria, saying the 10,000 federal workers there were doing a "fantastic job."

"This is the time to show our 'true colors,'" she wrote. "We cannot be distracted by anything else."

The White House says five employees were let go from their jobs related to past marijuana use, even though personnel policies were updated so that past pot use would not automatically bar people from working there.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday on Twitter: "The bottom line is this: of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy."

Psaki pointed to a recent NBC report on the new guidelines, which were negotiated because marijuana use is legal in some places in the United States but remains illegal under federal law.

“That behavior was unconscionable for our country,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wrote to Trump in a letter announcing her resignation. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me.”

He encouraged the crowd to walk to the Capitol, telling them they would “never take back our country with weakness.” He said Vice President Mike Pence had better do “the right thing,” and falsely claimed that Pence had the power to deny President-elect Joe Biden his rightful election victory.

None of what happened last week was surprising. And Trump’s comments inciting violence were perfectly in line with everything he has been saying since he first entered presidential politics.

“Police officers are trained to defuse and de-escalate situations, or they should be trained to defuse and de-escalate situations. There could have been something else done before you take a person’s life,” Wallace’s cousin Sam White told NBC10 Philadelphia.

Police on the scene of Wallace’s psychological episode should have kept their distance and waited for an ambulance to arrive, he says. Given that Wallace’s mother was present, trying to de-escalate the situation and not in immediate danger, the officers could have strategically retreated, he says, “but instead, they have this force neutralization mindset that unfortunately leads actually to the escalation of violence.”

(CNN)A Michigan sheriff joined protesters in Flint Township on Saturday, putting down his weapon and saying, "I want to make this a parade, not a protest."

Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson spoke with demonstrators who were met by police officers in riot gear, local affiliate WEYI reported.

"Let's go, let's go," Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. "Where do you want to walk? We'll walk all night."

Joseph R. Biden Jr. ventured onto the campaign trail, where he wished the president a speedy recovery but criticized his leadership, suggesting that he bore some responsibility for his positive test after flouting public health guidelines around masks and social distancing.

“Anybody who contracts the virus by essentially saying masks don’t matter, social distancing doesn’t matter, I think is responsible for what happens to them,” Mr. Biden said

“Quite frankly, I wasn’t surprised,” he said in response to another question.

President Trump was fully aware of how severe the coronavirus was back in February, even as he was publicly downplaying it.

Short everything.

declining to answer a question from Senator Cory Booker — and others from various Democrats — on whether it was “wrong to separate children from their parents to deter immigrants from coming to the United States.”

With Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) preparing to unveil a plan Wednesday for how Congress could regulate AI, lawmakers are suddenly crowding into briefings with top industry executives, summoning leading academics for discussions and taking other steps to try to wrap their heads around the emerging field.

This charm offensive has left some consumer advocates uneasy that lawmakers might let the industry write its own rules — which some executives are outright recommending. In an interview this spring, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt argued that the industry, not the government, should be setting “reasonable boundaries” for the future of AI.

“There’s no way a non-industry person can understand what is possible. It’s just too new, too hard. There’s not the expertise,” Schmidt told NBC. “There’s no one in the government who can get it right. But the industry can roughly get it right.”